THE scenes we saw towards the end of Wednesday’s win over Chelsea at London Stadium were a huge disappointment.
A disappointment to all who have worked so hard to put on such an exciting fixture in the face of a small minority of mindless individuals hell-bent on causing trouble.
It saddens me greatly that the behaviour of the few — met with the highest levels of professionalism from stadium security and the Metropolitan Police — overshadowed what, up until the last few minutes, was a fantastic game of football.
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There was an electric atmosphere created by passionate supporters, the majority of whom behaved impeccably and supported their team to an excellent win in front of another record attendance.
Ahead of the game, as a club, we did everything in our power to restrict and minimise potential problems.
We worked tirelessly day and night with the safety and security teams at London Stadium and the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that every potential risk was assessed and prepared for.
Without question, we could have sold out the stadium twice over but the safety of our supporters is always our primary concern.
And as a result we made the correct decision to impose strong restrictions on tickets, which were limited to supporters with a level of recorded purchase history — who could only access one ticket each.
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Other avoidance measures, such as the restriction of alcohol sales around the stadium, were taken.
While the line of segregation between both sets of supporters was never actually broken — and supporters never made contact with one another — the baying behaviour that we witnessed is completely unacceptable to everyone at West Ham United and Chelsea Football Club and we will be taking the most severe action possible against individuals involved.
Indeed, we are in prime position to ensure these people are identified as a result of the superb quality HD CCTV at London Stadium.
It is the best available and has already led to the banning of 23 individuals this season.
We have already identified supporters involved in these unpleasant scenes and without question they will be banned from our club for life.
We will also be passing on CCTV footage to Chelsea FC, who may want to take similar action against their supporters.
Further bans will be issued as soon as the perpetrators are identified.
We are of course working closely with the police to ensure that, once identified, these individuals are brought to justice.
And we will use every tool at our disposal, including the publication of images of those responsible, to ensure this happens.
The safety advisory experts that we work with as a club have unanimously told us that the incidents were handled with the utmost professionalism and were brought to a halt in good time.
This does not excuse the behaviour that we saw, which has rightfully been condemned by all parties and is completely unacceptable.
As a result, my team have no other focus today than identifying the individuals responsible and dealing with them appropriately.
Football does not need these kind of individuals and — with more than 55,000 supporters on our season-ticket waiting list — we certainly don’t need them at West Ham.
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